Test of Perreaux Eloquence CDt amplifier and 250i+eDAC turntable

Advantages: high brightness and contrast, wide range of projection distance, various picture enhancement functions and special effects

Disadvantages: At high brightness you can hear the fan noise

In every way, the remarkable PERREAUX components from the Eloquence series are wonderfully played and rarely functional. A large number of digital and analog inputs amplifier with built-in digital-to-analog converter allows the user to configure the home stereo system as you want, introducing an external processor in it, feeding the signal from a computer or portable player, you can even digitize the signal, displaying it through a USB-port. But all these features would be next to nothing without the main advantage of the CDt transport and the integrated amplifier 250i – the components sound exquisitely musical and can satisfy the most demanding audiophile.

TEST RESULTS

CONSTRUCTION: in the previous issue we already introduced our readers to PERREAUX New Zealand electronics from the new Eloquence line. That time we wrote about integrated Eloquence 150i amplifier, now we’ll tell you about two other devices from this series – Eloquence CDt transport and integrated Eloquence 250i+eDAC amplifier with a special emphasis on the work of built in D/A converter module. In principle, the concept of creating a series of Eloquence revolves around this DAC, because the line has no full-fledged CD-player, and transports, as you know, built-in converter does not have. So to “pair” transport CDt with the family of amplifiers Eloquence requires either external DAC, or native eDAC from PERREAUX, and the latter solution seems to be at least more convenient.

You might have guessed it, the senior Eloquence 250i is the same as the Eloquence 150i, only more powerful and functional. The case of the 250i is about 1.5 times the height of its smaller brother 149 vs. 102 mm and is as much heavier 25 to 17 kg . The quality of construction is more than solid: a full metal chassis with an aluminum front panel about 2 cm thick, deep radiators taking up the whole length of the cabinet sides. In the center of the front is a large knob, on the right side is a large LCD display and round buttons. Under the display we see something new, which was not on the 150 unit – two jacks, one of which is a headphone output, the other – a line input for a 3.5-mm mini-jack plug, to which you can connect a portable player. The rear panel of the unit contains: XLR balanced inputs, input of the termination and preliminary amplification stages, recording output, trigger output, IR sensor input and output, five RCA line inputs, one of which the fourth is by default “through” with unregulated volume and can be used for receiving signal from external processor. The RS-232 command port is compatible with Control4, AMX and Crestron control systems. All this was in the younger amplifier, in contrast Eloquence 250i is equipped with additional trigger input and four pairs of acoustic terminals, that is, the amplifier is ready to connect the acoustics by Bi-Wiring method. We haven’t touched the connectors concerning the digital-to-analog converter yet, we’ll tell you about it separately.

Inside the amplifier there is a big, low-noise toroidal transformer with XQ core, rated at 1000 VA and surrounded by eight buffer capacitors with total capacity of 44000 uF. The amplifier path is designed on the principle of “double mono”, the signal circuits are strictly symmetrical schematically and spatially separated and isolated from the mutual interference. The pre-stage operates in Class A, the power stage uses MOSFETs. The transistors for the left and right channels are as far apart as possible and are connected to the side heatsinks. As a result, the Eloquence 250i has a large power reserve, unprecedented for an average “integral” – 250 W/8 Ohm 500 W/4 Ohm , a peak current of 45 A and a high damping factor 800 at full power, 1 kHz and 8 Ohm allows the device to easily handle heavy loads.

All settings of the amplifier go through the built-in microprocessor and it is responsible for the action of the contactless protection system monitoring overheating, short circuits, shift of the current constant component or problems with the fuse. In addition to precise multi-channel volume and balance adjustments, the Eloquence 250i makes many adjustments that make life convenient: you can change the name and sensitivity of any input, set volume start and stop thresholds and much more. You can, for example, disconnect the pre- and post-gain sections from each other by putting an equalizer in between. The display of our amplifier can display the clock, it allows you to adjust brightness and contrast, set the time after which it will dim. In general there are a lot of modifiable features of the Eloquence family, and I don’t have enough space to list them all. Note only that to the slew of standard settings we’ve seen in Eloquence 150i, the 250th unit added volume control +/-40 dB and headphone output channel balance.

The D/A converter card inside the amplifier is equipped with a Burr-Brown 24-bit/192 kHz chip and has five jacks: two coaxial BNC digital inputs, two optical TosLink and a USB port. It is interesting, but the last one can work not only to receive the signal, but also to transmit it, ie eDAC module can digitize the signal, transmitting it to your computer for example. But the USB-interface only supports limited data stream 16 bit/8-48 kHz . Once the Eloquence 250i detects the onboard PCB, its extensive menu offers three converter functions: the user can change the absolute signal polarity, select the digital filter slope and disable upsampling. All of the above steps can be independently repeated for each of the digital inputs.

Now let’s say a few words about the signal source in our stereo, the Eloquence CDt transport. It has the same rugged styling as the amplifiers in the series, a slot loading mechanism and the familiar LCD display. On the back of the unit there are service connectors, including an RS232 port, adjacent to three digital outputs: optical TosLink, coaxial BNC and coaxial RCA. It is strange that the developers took care of the presence of the most common in AV technique RCA jack in the transport, but they did not think to do the same on the converter board in the amplifier. Now it is a modern trend – the amplifier of such a high level can play MP3 recordings.

The devices come with a small flat remote control, the design of which does not quite match the high standard raised by Eloquence series components, but there are no complaints about its performance.

SOUND

Raidho Ayra C-2 Speakers helped us to evaluate PERREAUX Eloquence CDt and 250i+eDAC components.0 and Nordost Valhalla cables.

Having listened to first Eloquence 150i in the previous issue and now CDt transport with the senior Eloquence 250i amplifier and digital-to-analog converter eDAC, it is already possible to generalize impressions about the sound character of the whole line. The style does not change depending on the type of connection – analog or digital: the sound of components is characterized by smooth tonal balance with a beautiful “tube” flavor in the midrange, the music is emotionally conveyed, and the timbre palette is brilliantly displayed. The top is airy, the bass is deep and well defined, and perfectly assembled, although maybe not record-breakingly fast. Sound microdynamics is very good, but Eloquence components managed not to overemphasize it. They possess the “right musicality” when the stereo section doesn’t artificially emphasize the fine details of the recording, but instead focuses on the important moments of the piece, the soloists, the leads, etc. But all the details are there, you just have to get used to the sound. The music scene is build by the components brilliantly: the concert hall volume is revealed great, the localization of characters is shown accurately, their sizes are credible, and chamber and symphony orchestras are reproduced in realistic scales.

It was interesting to play with the DAC settings. The switch of digital filter droop had no effect on the author’s ears, but I liked the sound with upsampling to 192 kHz more than the “through” Bypass mode. Increasing the sampling of the data resulted in clearer outlines of images at the edges of the stage and smoother transitions between echelons of the stage in orchestral compositions.

For pure experimentation, we connected a Hegel CDP4A MkII player to the analog inputs of a 250i integrated amplifier at the end of the tests. As it seems to us, the comparison of sources in this case turns out appropriate, as the price of the turntable Hegel and a pair of CDt transports plus eDAC converter, which can be sold separately, approximately correspond to each other. Curiously, the already refined sound of the stereo system connected by analog cables got even better – a little better sound articulation at the top and bottom, the scene became even more transparent. This does not cast a shadow on the transport or the Eloquence DAC, as the differences in the sound of the stereo with the Hegel CDP4A were minimal, in both cases the sound of the stereo was without exaggeration excellent, but it still leads to speculation.

Summary

Advantages: high brightness and contrast, wide projection distance, various picture enhancement functions and special effects

Weaknesses: fan noise is audible at high brightness

125 000 Dollars.

317,000 Dollars.